The theme for the 2017 Edition of the Prize is the use of ICTs to increase access to quality education and lifelong learning opportunities. It will reward organizations and individuals carrying out innovative practices to leverage ICTs for out-of-school children and youth, internally displaced persons and refugees, persons with disabilities, illiterate populations, adults who cannot access relevant skills development or higher education opportunities, and other socio-economic disadvantaged groups. The winning project should also promote the values and attitudes that underlie Education 2030 and the broader Sustainable Development Agenda.

The Prize aims to contribute to the advancement of equity and quality in Education, a key guiding principle of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) for Education 2030. The Education 2030 agenda promotes education systems that combine increased and expanded access, inclusion and equity, quality and learning outcomes at all levels, within a lifelong learning approach. It calls on the international community to develop innovations to address all forms of exclusion and marginalization, disparities and inequalities in access, participation and learning outcomes, in all settings and at all levels of education.

The increasingly powerful capacities and lower price of ICTs has enabled a rapid diffusion of digital devices and applications as well as freely accessible digital content, and has made ICTs more affordable, notably in low-income countries, to close gaps of access and quality in education. Recognizing quality-assured online courses or other digital learning programmes as an alternative or complementary mode to face-to-face programmes of study, represents one of the innovations to accelerate the achievement of the SDG 4.

Two prizewinners will be designated by UNESCO’s Director-General based on the recommendations of an international jury. Each winner will receive a monetary award (USD 25,000) and a diploma. Winners of the 2017 Prize will be announced during a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in early 2018.

How to submit applications and nominations

Nominations for the Prize should be submitted no later than 10 November 2017 by filling out the online submission form in English or French: www.unesco.org/ict-ed-prize (new users: www.unesco.org/ict-ed-prize/register)

National Commissions of the Member States of UNESCO and International Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) maintaining official relations with UNESCO are invited to solicit, nominate and submit up to three candidatures for the Prize. Self-nominations without an endorsement letter from a National Commissions or an International Non-Governmental Organizations in official partnership with UNESCO will not be allowed.

The  application  will  automatically  be  submitted  to  the  Secretariat  for  the UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education, located in the Unit for ICT in Education of the Division for Policies and Lifelong Learning Systems within the Education Sector. Publications, videos or other supporting materials of major importance may be submitted as attached documents to the online application. 

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